Traitors' Gate

      'The caves!' Gregory almost shouted. 'What caves?'

      'The Buda hill is honeycombed with caves,' the elderly porter replied. 'There are lakes beneath our feet and many of the mineral springs rise in them. Legend has it that our forefathers took refuge down there when the Turks ravished the city in the fifteenth century. Many of the old palaces have ways down into them; and I recall, when I was a boy and Pipi's father was Steward here, hearing him say that there was a way into them through a trapdoor in the cellars.'

      For Gregory this possibility meant a chance of life and freedom, and for Sabine escape from the threatening attentions of the Gestapo. He did not attempt to keep the excitement out of his voice, as he cried:

      'In the cellars! But where? Could you find it?'

      Hunyi shook his head. 'No, Herr Commandant. But Pipi might know where it is.'

      Sabine called to Pipi to leave the hose to the footman and come over to them. Quickly they questioned him; but he could not help. He knew of the caves but had never heard his father speak of an entrance to them from the Tuzolto palace.

      Gregory's heart sank again. If it was there they should be able to find it. But since its existence was not even known to Pipi it would need careful looking for, and in the cellars of a large building like the palace such a search might take hours.

      Rushing from place to place, their hasty conferences, and the wear and tear from constant fits of violent coughing made them feel as if the smoke bomb attack had been going on all night; but, in fact, it was less than half an hour since Pipi had given the first alarm, and there was a quarter of an hour still to go before it would be one o'clock. Given normal conditions, two or three hours should have proved enough to locate the trapdoor. But conditions in the palace were not normal. The rooms on its main floors were now pitch black caverns, and Gregory knew that by this time enough smoke must have seeped down into the basement to asphyxiate anyone who remained there without a mask for more than ten or fifteen minutes.

      Nevertheless, as it was that or death outside, and the yard was now becoming thick with smoke, Gregory determined to

      * Note: At the end of 1944 Hungary, all too belatedly, repudiated her alliance with Germany and offered to surrender to the Soviet Union. In revenge Hitler ordered the destruction of the capital and, before the Russians arrived, the Germans shelled and bombed into ruins a great part of the beautiful palaces on Buda hill. But many thousands of Hungarians saved their lives by sheltering from the bombardment in the caves referred to here.

      try it. The air was clearest near the gate; so most of the servants were now in a huddle by it, under the archway through which the smoke bombs were coming. Mario was among them. Gregory ran over to him and gasped:

      'A pair of goggles! Have you a pair of goggles? I am going into the palace again.'

      Mario nodded, and they ran together to the garage. At the back of it there was a motorcycle that belonged to him. Snatching a pair of goggles from its handlebars he thrust them at Gregory and panted:

      'One moment, I have others. If I can help I will come with you.' Turning to a box of spares he unearthed two older pairs, the elastics of which were stretched, but not too badly for them to be useable.

      As they emerged from the garage, Pipi came running towards them. For the first time that night he was laughing. In his round blackened face his teeth flashed like those of a negro. Behind him, by the wrist, he was dragging an old woman. For a moment he was seized with a coughing fit, then he spluttered out:

      'I asked the other servants. This is old Ciska, our laundry woman. She knows where it is.'

      'Thank God!' exclaimed Gregory. 'Quick! Give her one of ' those pairs of goggles, Mario.'

      As she took them, Pipi snatched the other pair and said, 'She speaks only Hungarian; I will go with you to interpret.'

      Mario shrugged. 'As you will. You know the cellars better than I do.'

      Gregory turned to him. 'You can help in another way. God alone knows what it will be like in the caves. Anyway, we'll need torches, candles, matches. Please collect everything of that kind you can while we are gone.'

      'We'll need a crowbar, too,' Pipi added. 'Not having been used for so long, it's certain the trap will be hard to get up.' As he spoke he ran into the machine shop and came out carrying a medium sized jemmy.

      Sabine was standing with Magda in an angle of the yard. Hurrying over to her, Gregory told her what he hoped to do, then rejoined the others. Parts of the yard were now two or three inches deep in water from the hose. In it they re-dampened the scarves and tied them afresh over their mouths and nostrils.

      With Pipi leading and old Ciska following beside Gregory, they went through a passage at the back of the garage into the main block of the house. The smoke was dense, but troubled them much less now that they wore goggles. Pipi fumbled his way along a corridor and found the stairs to the basement. Down in it there was much less smoke, but enough to justify Gregory's fear that without a mask anyone would be driven from it within a quarter of an hour.

      Pipi was snapping the lights on as he advanced and old Ciska kept mumbling to him in Hungarian. They walked in Indian file along several low stone flagged passages, then came into a broader space along one side of which were trestles supporting a row of casks. There they halted, and after a moment Pipi turned to Gregory.

      'She said it was in the beer cellar and this is the beer cellar. But now she says that, although it's nearly thirty" years since she's been in this part of the basement, she's sure that the beer cellar she remembers was not like this.'

      'Probably she has confused it in her mind with a cellar that holds wine casks,' Gregory suggested. 'Is there one that does?'

      'Yes, Herr Commandant.'

      'Then let's take her to it.'

      For a moment Pipi was silent, then he burst out, 'St Stephen's curse upon it! We cannot. The wine cellars are locked, and I keep the keys in my room upon the second floor. This scarf is not enough protection to go upstairs. I'd be suffocated before I could get back with them.'

      'Perhaps we can break down the door. Anyway, let's go and see.'

      With a despondent shake of the head Pipi turned about, and led them down a corridor at right angles to the one by which they had come to another open space. Giving a helpless shrug, he pointed to an ancient nail studded door set in a low archway.

      Gregory gave vent to a peculiarly blasphemous Italian oath that he used only in times of exceptional stress. The jemmy that Pepi was holding might have been a matchstick for all the good it would have been against such a door. Nothing short of dynamite would have burst its lock or forced it off its hinges.

      The wave of evil fury that had rocked his mind was past in a moment. Swiftly he began to assess the chances of his being able to get Pipi's keys himself. It meant going up three flights of stairs back stairs that were unknown to him finding a room somewhere at the opposite end of the house to the one he had occupied a room that he had never entered then in pitch darkness locating solely from its description the right drawer in a bureau or writing table, and finally getting safely back to the cellar again.

      'No,' he decided. Pipi was no coward and if, knowing the house from cellar to attic, would not take such a gamble, it would be sheer lunacy for him to attempt it. The sulphur laden air would overcome him and he would be choking his life out before he could even find Pipi's room.